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June 2020, New Mexico: One ranch, nine dead cattle, and six very strange wolf investigations
Anyone who has been following this blog lately knows that I’ve been writing a bit and a bit more about Wildlife Services’ depredation reports that indict Mexican wolves for livestock deaths under suspicious circumstances, often with very scant or inconsistent evidence. It’s been a long, strange trip that started with our questions about potential causes…
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More on Wildlife Services’ sketchy depredation reports blaming Mexican wolves for livestock kills
Mexican gray wolves are blamed for all kinds of livestock deaths in Catron County, and so we wanted to see for ourselves, by reviewing depredation reports, how USDA Wildlife Services is investigating dead livestock and arriving at determinations that Mexican wolves are to blame. Spoiler alert: It’s not particularly convincing. (I’ve written about this before,…
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Advocates want answers about depredation investigations in New Mexico
Late in May 2020, the Arizona Daily Star ran an article titled, “Advocates question investigations used to target ‘problem’ wolves,” detailing some of the work that Western Watersheds Project has been doing to review and assess Wildlife Services’ work on livestock killed by Mexican wolves in New Mexico. Together with my colleague – WWP’s Arizona…
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A disservice to the community; Rely on the science instead.
*** The following letter by Sarah Killingsworth was originally published in the Point Reyes Light. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author. Dear Editors – In their opinion piece supporting ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore (Point Reyes Light, July 9, 2020), Sue Conley and Albert Straus make the following statement in the penultimate paragraph,…
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Save the Saffel Pack
There’s an old saying about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In the West, this could easily apply to public lands ranching and predator management. Ranchers want the predators gone to protect their bottom line but predators are a key part of ecosystem health and are…
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What’s the hang up on releasing adult lobos?
On March 9, a colleague from Endangered Species Coalition and I published this op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal, identifying Arizona and New Mexico as major stumbling blocks to wolf recovery, “[B]ecause both are allowing the Fish and Wildlife Service only to conduct cross-fostering in their states.” We called out the urgency with which the New…
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Trump’s environmental review rollback puts ranchers in charge of public lands
*This piece is authored by Talasi Brooks, Staff Attorney at Western Watersheds Project President Trump’s proposed new rollbacks of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations will not only accelerate destructive infrastructure projects, they will also cut environmental concerns out of decision-making for livestock grazing on millions of acres of public lands. Where environmental reviews do occur,…
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Idaho Fish and Game Commission Stifles Conservation Voices
(Written by Talasi Brooks) I recently testified before the Idaho Fish and Game Commission opposing proposals to increase wolf-killing and allow glorified wolf baiting in Idaho. I pointed out that since the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) does not have a wolf population estimate based on radio collar data and aerial surveys, increasing…